AA status: EXP
Date: 10/1
Route SFO to HNL
cleared ~12 hours before departure.

Earlier in the day, I saw that I was 3 out of 8 with only 1 seat left. I was able to select seats in premium class upon booking so no big deal. to my surprise, I was upgraded! My guess is 1 and 2 were traveling together and only 1 may have been upgraded, but declined. thus, I was the lucky recipient of an unexpected upgrade!